


every flying machine has four basic controls

by Fahye



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 11:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fahye/pseuds/Fahye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve always been good at pretending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every flying machine has four basic controls

She’s very happy to discover that Zak has a brother, and leaps into this new kind of relationship with her normal thoughtless enthusiasm. Dragging Lee along to help her choose a birthday present and teasing him unmercifully about his new haircut is perfectly fine, perfectly natural.

It’s only when she trips and his hand slips instantly under her arm, when she feels the smooth and effortless fit of his fingers and the dangerous urge she has to lean closer, when she meets his eyes and watches the wary Adama shield fall into place, that she realises that she has the power to hurt him, and hurt him badly.

After that she tries to be more careful.

(But sometimes he smiles, and she forgets.)

~

When he kisses her, it’s every stomach-lurching manouevre and every spin that she’s ever done in defiance of gravity. And yet for all that, it’s a simulation. Apparent motion.

Not quite real.

Just as she knows that Lee Adama doesn’t go in for public displays of affection, and just as she knows that the President is standing in the same room – along with some other people that she didn’t have time to identify before her eyes landed on Lee and never quite managed to move on – she knows that she is standing quite still.

And yet she feels as though she is pitching forward, melting through the many layers of metal and finding no sure footing on the dizzying, endless space below.

~

Sometimes she misses seasons. Every night the temperature is the same, and she yearns irrationally for sticky unpleasant heat or a brisk chill that would justify a second blanket.

Then she thinks about Caprica, about her joy at the warm nights and Sam’s laughter when she told him. And about Zak’s deep dislike of winter, the way he would press his cold nose against her neck to make her gasp.

She rolls onto her other side and closes her eyes, listening to the sure and regular sound of Lee’s breathing from the rack above her. She is very careful to keep her own breaths regular as well, feigning the exhausted sleep she can’t quite bring herself to succumb to, because if she can pretend then there’s no reason he can’t do it just as easily. In and out, in and out, and maybe he’s listening to her rhythm as well.

It’s not like this is anything new. They’ve always been good at pretending.

~

“I’m staying here,” she says.

He just stands there with his gaze so steady and so understanding that she could hit him. “As long as that’s what you want, Kara,”

“It is,” and she means to couple that with a careful nod so that there is no doubt about her resolution, but the muscles in her neck seize up and before she can think she steps forward and hugs him.

Lee exhales slowly and hugs her back. She’s not going to start analysing why he’s holding her so tightly, every inch of him pressed against her and bleeding warmth, but she knows exactly why her arms are reciprocating that force; so that he cannot see or feel the treachery of her head, making minute trembling movements from side to side.


End file.
